While Gov. Ron DeSantis prioritized immunizing “Seniors First” in the first three months of 2021, the coronavirus has since killed more people ages 65 and older in Florida than anywhere else in the nation. And Florida’s COVID death rate among the elderly is higher here than in most states.
State health officials have logged 30,060 fatalities among seniors ages 65 and older between April 2021 — when adults 18 or older could readily get the shots — and September, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The disease has killed at least 82,065 Floridians overall since the pandemic began.
The size of Florida’s elderly populace — 4.3 million — alone does not explain this.
Californians 65-and-older outnumber those Floridians by about 1.3 million; its 85-and-older count is about 187,000 higher, U.S. Census Bureau estimates show. California, third behind Florida in elderly deaths, is the only state with more senior residents, but the virus killed fewer of them, more than 24,000.
Florida’s elderly COVID death toll since last spring is followed by Texas, which has tallied more than 27,000.
Florida has also become No. 1 for COVID deaths among seniors 85 and older with 9,828 fatalities, followed by California, Texas and New York. Scientists say decisions and policies by the DeSantis administration could explain why COVID has killed an exceptionally high number of Floridians in the age group most vulnerable to the respiratory disease.
“I think it was a rather laissez-faire approach to dealing with a rather aggressive virus,” former Harvard University epidemiologist Dr. Michael Mina said. “I think Florida is reeling with that decision at this point.
Vaccinating seniors is not enough, University of Florida epidemiologist Dr. Frederick Southwick said. “It’s not just that the elderly become vaccinated, but everyone becomes vaccinated because that does reduce the spread.” About 21% of Floridians younger than 65 have gotten boosted, compared with 36% in California and 32% in New York and Illinois. The more young people who get their shots, Southwick said, the harder it is for the airborne pathogen to spread to their parents and grandparents and penetrate their immune systems.
But since early 2021, DeSantis has signed executive orders or legislation outlawing COVID vaccine requirements for businesses, schools and government agencies; and banning cities and counties from enacting widespread masking orders. “The problem is they’re ignoring science,” Southwick said. “Early on, (DeSantis) did promote the vaccine but later on, he did not.”
Most of Florida’s elderly died after April 2021, when vaccines became widely available. Not so for the rest of the country, where most died when the shots were scarce. From December 2020 until April 2021, when DeSantis pushed his campaign to inoculate “Seniors First,” Florida logged fewer COVID fatalities among retirement-age residents than California, Texas and New York.
“To me, it’s obvious what happened in Florida,” Mina said. “We have low vaccination rates even after accounting for the excess fraction of older individuals in Florida. I think that’s a reflection of how Florida chose to deal with this virus. We saw the Florida surgeon general multiple times undermining efforts to combat this virus.”
Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, a DeSantis appointee, is the only top health official of any state recommending large swaths of the population skip COVID vaccination. He has said children and men younger than 40 should not get inoculated.
Ladapo has touted unproven COVID treatments such as an anti-parasitic livestock medicine called Ivermectin. Like New York, California and Illinois, more than 90% of Florida’s seniors have gotten the initial two-dose Moderna or Pfizer regimens, or the single-shot Johnson & Johnson.
But unlike those states, far fewer Florida seniors have gotten booster shots — about 60% — putting the state at No. 36 in the nation.
Even after accounting for population sizes, Florida seniors are more likely to die of COVID compared with the majority of elderly people in America. Since April 2021, COVID has killed about 691 Florida seniors for every 100,000 elderly residents, a death rate higher than 30 other states.
Florida’s elderly COVID death rate is about 60% higher than California, 28% higher than New York and 25% higher than Illinois. Florida’s COVID death rate for seniors is also 42% higher than Maine’s, where, like the Sunshine State, about 1 in 5 residents is at least 65 years old.
The disease also has spread faster among Florida’s seniors than those in other states.
While states do not uniformly report what share of people 65 and older have been infected, comparisons of Florida data to elderly population estimates show that 17% have been infected since April 2021. In California, it’s 11%. And New Jersey, 12%.
When The Palm Beach Post presented statistics to the Florida Department of Health showing that Florida has become No. 1 for senior COVID deaths and its per-capita death rate is higher than most states, department spokesperson Weesam Khoury called the analysis “illiterate.”
“The Department cannot confirm and will not respond to the data or patterns you are referencing because they seem to be ambiguous data correlations within random timeframes that somehow fit your intended narrative,” Khoury said in an email.
DeSantis’ office did not return requests for comment. But infectious disease specialists say that analyzing deaths after April 2021 is optimal because that’s when doses became readily available. “It’s a reasonable period of time to look at,” Mina said.
When vaccines first rolled out in December 2020, DeSantis prioritized the shots going to the elderly in his “Seniors First” campaign. Those 65 and older, along with health care workers, were eligible in the early days of the vaccine. Most victims were, and still are, elderly.
“Since he did not publicize or push the vaccine and has been very anti-mask … and really prevented local areas from mandating masks, that really has taken away one of the key interventions preventing the spread,”said Southwick, the UF epidemiologist.
DeSantis’ actions have hindered inoculation statewide.
Organizations that ask for proof of vaccination are subject to investigations by the state that could result in hefty fines. When the Special Olympics wanted to host games in Florida this past summer, the DeSantis administration threatened organizers with a $27.5 million fine for requiring COVID inoculation. The Special Olympics dropped the rule.
Spring break hot spots such as Daytona Beach and Miami Beach experienced COVID infection spikes in March 2021, which their mayors blamed on DeSantis’ orders restricting them from enforcing masking rules.
When the coronavirus’ deadly delta variant swept the state in the summer of 2021, DeSantis sued the federal government to stop cruise ships from asking passengers to show proof of vaccination. Cruise lines supported the requirement.
DeSantis has also taken to badmouthing the vaccine.
“The vaccinations are not preventing infection,” DeSantis said during a news conference in January in Fort Lauderdale.
Lisa Zoubek, 57, of Spring Hills, believes that her mother, Madelyn Wilder, died because she believed DeSantis’ message.
Zoubek suspects DeSantis’ anti-vaccine, anti-mask messages broadcast on Fox News or via live news conferences on local TV got to her mother. Wilder received her first dose of the vaccine, but not the second, her daughter said. A retired nurse, Wilder spent much of her time watching TV at her home in Citrus County, Zoubek said, more than an hour’s drive north of Tampa.
“Ron DeSantis was telling people, ‘Oh, you don’t need to wear masks. You don’t need to get vaccines,’ ” Zoubek said. “She wasn’t hearing anything on the TV saying, ‘This is horrible. You need to get a vaccine as soon as it comes out.’ ”
Wilder succumbed to COVID in August 2021, when Florida logged more COVID deaths than anywhere else in the nation for the second summer in a row.
“People are talking about, ‘Oh, we were able to keep our businesses open and go back to school and not force us to wear masks,’ ” Zoubek said. “Yeah, great. Your business is open, but my mom’s gone.”–
I doubt DeSantis will ever be held responsible for his policies which clearly led to a mass death event among the elderly that outpaces anywhere else in the country long after we knew what this virus could do. That he did this in a state with millions of elderly retirees makes it all the more grotesque. Indeed, his choice of that quack for surgeon general is says everything you need to know.
California has not had onerous mandates since early 2021. But we also haven’t had our political leaders insulting and mocking people for wearing masks if they chose to or suggesting that young people shouldn’t get vaccinated. I’m sure it all could have been done better but for a big unwieldy state, they did pretty well. Florida, which gets all kinds of credit for allegedly handling the pandemic better than anyone else was actually a dismal failure.
